ROOMIER RENTALS

Many New Yorkers may laugh at the fantastically huge Manhattan
apartments that are depicted on television shows like
Friends, but to the rest of America's renters, such large
abodes are more fact than fiction.

A national survey of 2,000 renters conducted by the Washington,
D.C.-based National Association of Home Builders reveals that the
average size of an apartment in the U.S. swelled to 1,100 square
feet in 2000, up from 900 square feet in 1980. And still, many
renters are hankering for even more space. About two-thirds of
apartment residents surveyed (68 percent) say they would like a
bigger place, and 34 percent would prefer 1,400 square feet or
more.

The fact that apartment dwellers are still primarily couples and
singles without kids — 92 percent of apartment units house no
school age children, and nearly half (44 percent) are one-person
households — makes one wonder: what do they want all that
extra room for?

GIVE ME MORE!

While only 10 percent of renters today live in an apartment with
three bedrooms, 30 percent wish they did.